Our hearts
by Bluestarshine
Summary: Nicholas Brody gave his life for the woman who gave him her trust, her devotion, and her heart - and he would give her his heart if only he had one to give.


**Disclaimer: Homeland is copyright to Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa and Gideon Raff. I claim nothing. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made**

* * *

Nicholas Brody sits still, rigid, like his body is engulfed by an unbearable pain. His heart pounds, heavily, in his chest. He can feel his forehead sweating, slightly. His fingers twitch nervously by his side as he fights the urge to throw up.

He has figured it out, pieced the puzzle together.

He recognises the faces of three men and two women in the room; he recognises them from his past and as he casts his eyes over them he wishes he did not recognise them.

He's running out of time.

He chooses Carrie.

Sadly, Brody knows that he cannot stop them from whatever it is they intend to do; if he tries to stop them, if he alerts anyone of their purpose, then he cannot save Carrie.

Brody knows he cannot save himself. There was never any option, never any chance, for him to do such a thing. He cannot be saved but he is at peace with that.

This world has only given him pain, caused him suffering, and placed inescapable grief, stress, and anxiety on to him. Brody wants to be free, he wants to be free with Carrie, but he isn't selfish. He knows such a thing is unachievable, for him, in this lifetime.

Perhaps, they will meet again and spend eternity together.

In his moment of complete and consuming fear, pounding pain, and an aching numbness, he finds her; Carrie. She's turned towards him, her face glowing almost with a soft light, a small smile resting on her features. Her eyes shine beautifully. She saves him again, from this inescapable darkness.

Brody knows the end is inevitable, for him, but he can do something for _her_, his love. He will save her, protect her, as he should have done from the beginning.

He will set his love free.

Brody gestures towards the door with his head, indicating that they should leave.

The familiar faces which he spot don't notice him as he stands, and for that he is momentarily relieved.

Brody steps formally towards the door, not acknowledging Carrie until they reach it.

He takes her hands and leads her outside, to the corridor.

"You okay?" she asks.

He nods, once, as a small smile appears on his face.

"Want to get out of here?" he asks her.

She can get out of here, he can save her.

She nods. "What did you have in mind?" she asks, smiling up at him.

Brody's smile widens, he leans forward and pushes a strand of hair off of his love's face before he presses a kiss to her lips. The kiss is soft, and filled with such love, and it is his goodbye to her.

"Meet me in your office?" he asks.

She is curious why he doesn't follow her there now, but she doesn't question him.

She trusts him unquestionably, undoubtedly.

"Okay." Carrie softly replies.

"Goodbye, love." he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead as he does.

She smiles at Brody as she turns slowly away from him, her eyes lingering on him for a moment longer before she turns away completely.

Brody knows it is for the best, it is for her, it is their goodbye.

He turns away from his love, and as he does it is one of the hardest things he has ever had to do.

Brody returns inside, closes his eyes, and awaits his inevitable end.

And as his end approaches, as it takes him and swallows him entirely, he sees her; his love, shining, resting, smiling in the soft morning light.

She takes him with her, holds him by the hand, and he finds a peace he only dreamt could exist.

* * *

Carrie wakes to light; a soft, warm, but almost painfully blinding light which blurs her surroundings, leaves her dazed for a moment, and prevents her from clearly viewing her surroundings.

The light fools her, deceives her, tricks her into believing things are peaceful. She believes that she is with him, but still she cannot see him.

She tries to call out to him but her words get caught in her throat, which is dry and burns slightly as she tries to speak.

"_Don't try to move, too quickly." _a nearby voice whispers.

This voice is unclear, to her, slow almost and she can't quite make out who it belongs to. However, she wants it to belong to him, she needs it to belong to him, so she convinces herself that Brody is with her.

"Brody?" she cries, his name finally passing her lips.

She blinks tightly, holding her eyes closed for a moment.

She feels a pain, in her side; a searing pain which she has only just felt, only just realised, because she was numb when she woke to the light.

With her eyes still shut tightly, she feels trapped in darkness.

Her opens quickly and as they readjust to her surroundings she finds she is in a hospital room, of sorts, and then she finds him; Quinn, sitting in an armchair beside her bed.

He's already watching her, his lips are parted – he's speaking to her.

"Don't try to move too quickly, Carrie." Quinn instructs, kindly.

The frown on her forehead deepens as she takes in his expression; worry, mixed with stress, anger, and swirling with sympathy rest on Quinn's tired features.

A smile spreads on his features – he is relieved, elated almost, to see her.

"What-What..." Carrie begins.

She glances down towards her hands, which are resting by her sides, and finds her hands and elbows are covered with thick, dry bandages.

Her frown only deepens at this revelation.

"What happened?" she finally manages to ask.

"You need to rest, Carrie." Quinn insists.

She shakes her head once.

"What happened, Quinn?" she asks, the fear slipping in her voice.

Quinn doesn't want to tell her, he's afraid she won't be able to handle it, won't be  
able to cope, in the state which she is currently in.

The doctors told him that she had received burns to her arms, legs, back and stomach. It would be best for her to rest, while she recovered, and she would need to do this in hospital because if the wounds were to get infected it could cause her a lot of pain, and it could be fatal if they infection was severe enough.

"You were hurt, Carrie." he admits.

She doesn't understand, she doesn't remember.

"How?" she asks.

"There was an explosion at Langley." Quinn states.

Carrie draws in a sharp breath of air; those few words trigger her memory, they bring the flashes back to her, but these fragments of her memory are small, and blurry in parts.

"I don't..." she begins.

Her eyes dart quickly around the room.

"I was there." she states.

Quinn nods once, as he continues to watch her carefully.

"How many?" she asks.

Quinn softly sighs.

"Too many." he replies, evasively.

He doesn't think she's ready for this, to learn the truth, to learn how many died, to learn who died. But he knows the inevitable is coming; she will ask for Brody, because she loves him.

Carrie swallows tightly, the frown on her features remains.

"I didn't...How.." she murmurs.

And then, it hits.

"Brody?" she asks, her voice unintentionally rising.

She's asking where Brody is, if he is injured, but most importantly she's asking whether he was involved in anyway. She doesn't believe he is, she believes that he is better than that, but she has to ask.

Quinn gives Carrie silence, and leaves her in the dark for another moment.

"Quinn, where's Brody?" she asks, the desperation in her voice echoing through the silent room.

"Carrie..." Quinn sighs, shifting in his chair.

He moves closer towards her, feeling her gaze on him as he does. He doesn't hesitate to rest a hand on hers, he does this gently and carefully.

"Quinn." she pleads.

She pleads with him to tell her the truth, to tell her that Brody is alive, and isn't injured or implicated because of the blast.

"We lost so many in the blast, Carrie." Quinn informs her. "Over 200 men and women. Brody was among them." he adds, with a colder tone.

She tries to control herself, to stop herself from breaking down entirely in front of Quinn, she tries to stop herself from crying but she can't.

Carrie shakes her head, quickly, adamantly.

She won't believe this, she can't that Nicholas Brody is dead. She can't live without her love.

"No," she says, the tears spilling quickly down her cheeks.

She remains oblivious to these tears.

"No, he's not." she says, like she's trying to convince Quinn that Brody isn't dead.

"Brody isn't dead, he's not dead." she says.

Quinn tightly presses his lips together, but says nothing else. He continues to keep his hand resting on hers.

She sees him, briefly; a flash before her open eyes. She was with him, at Langley, they entered separately but she had turned around, in her chair, and had found him a sitting a few rows back. He had already been watching her, as he always did.

"I was with him, there, at Langley." Carrie states, like she's trying to convince herself that she was there with him.

"I know, Carrie. I know you were." Quinn sympathetically agrees.

She continues to shake her head.

"The blast killed Estes, the entire Walden Family, and Brody-" Quinn begins.

Carrie doesn't ask about Saul because she knows he wasn't at Langley, at the time, so he couldn't have been injured in the blast.

"You need to rest, Carrie." Quinn insists.

"What I need is the truth – and this, this is not the truth. Brody is not dead. He's not. He was with me, Quinn." Carrie says, sadly, her voice unintentionally rising.

"What do you remember, Carrie?" he asks.

She exhales loudly, the tears still falling, her breathing still remaining heavy and almost uncontrollable.

"We were- we were at Langley." she begins.

Quinn nods.

"What else?" he asks.

Quinn doesn't want to push her, he won't ever push her, but he needs to know how she managed to escape the blast if she was with Brody.

Nicholas Brody's body was found inside the room of the blast, along with the other victims.

Carrie's bloodied and burnt body was found in a hallway, only a few metres away. She was breathing when they found her, so she was taken to the nearest hospital.

Two days have passed since the explosion.

"I turned around and he was there." Carrie says. "Brody was." she states.

"What happened next?" Quinn asks.

The tears fall heavier down her cheeks, now, but she makes no attempt to wipe them away.

"He gestured to the door." she says.

A slight frown flickers on Quinn's features.

"I met him in the hallway," she continues. "Brody said – he told me to meet him in my office." she whispers. "I didn't ask him why, I went." she softly says.

Brody knew, somehow he knew about the explosion. He sent Carrie away to save her life, to protect her.

"The blast, it-" Carrie begins.

"You don't have to defend Brody, it wasn't him. There were five...in vests..." Quinn murmurs, lifting his head up to his hands, and releasing Carrie's, as he speaks.

Quinn sighs loudly.

"He must have recognised them." Quinn mutters.

The two remain in an empty silence until Quinn breaks it.

"I'm sorry, Carrie..." he whispers, finally.

But apologies are just empty words to Carrie, who feels an insufferable emptiness at the thought of life without her love.

Brody saved her from the blast but he didn't save her from herself, from her demons, or from the sickness, the illness, that would soon ravage her body.

He had died for her, so that he may save her life, but she was dying without him.

She left. Carrie packed her things, at the hospital, and in the first moment she could – she ran. She ran from her family, and her friends, and she never looked back because she could never look back, she could never go back, she had nothing to return to.

She was empty without Brody, he left a hole in her heart, in her life, and in her mind that could not or would not be filled by another.

They shared something special, something that she knew she would never feel again. She was incapable of feeling anything real, anything good, without him.

She ran from the hospital and left in search of Brody.

She searched for desperate reminders of him.

She found only emptiness, and darkness, wherever she searched until she was pulled towards the place where she would find him, the place she knew he would be.

The cabin.

She stumbled upon it in her memory, by luck, one afternoon as she sat in the drivers seat of her car.

She drove as quickly as she could to the cabin, her forehead dripping with beads of sweat, she was numb to the pain now. She was numb because of the medication which she'd consumed until she didn't feel pain.

She arrived at the Cabin in the early hours of the night; she stumbled inside, quickly, and in search of a reminder, a memory, of Brody.

He was everywhere in the cabin.

He was smiling at her in the kitchen, or laughing.

He was beside the bed, his shirt removed, wearing his scars on his body for her to see. He was vulnerable here, he was soft and tender, and she had loved him even more when he revealed himself to her, when he revealed his scars.

She could find him on the couch, when they were discussing the possibilities of a future, their future, and the fresh start they _almost_ had.

She should have told him. He hadn't let her say those three words, which she had wanted to, because he was worried he would hurt her.

He had hurt her in the past but she trusted him, she had faith in him, that he wouldn't do such a thing.

Pain accompanied his absence.

By the time Carrie reached her bed, _their_ bed, she was tired. She couldn't remember how much wine she had consumed, or how many pills she had taken, but she had stopped sweating.

The pain was completely gone, she didn't feel a thing, as the darkness of the cabin lulled her to a soft sleep.

"_Carrie..."_ he whispers.

She's too frightened to open her eyes.

"_Carrie..." _Brody repeats, and she can almost picture the smile on his features.

"_Open your eyes." _he pleads.

She cannot refuse him, she never could.

Her eyes open slowly, cautiously, and as they do she finds the cabin is lit up with a warm golden, morning light which shines through the windows and lights up everything that it touches – including Nicholas Brody.

She smiles as she sees him.

"You're here." she cries, tears rolling down her cheeks.

He's lying beside her, in bed, smiling at her. He reaches out to her cheek and gently touches it, wiping the tears away.

"Why are you crying, love?" he asks.

She smiles.

"You're here." she repeats.

"Always, Carrie." he smiles.

Brody lifts her hand upwards and presses a soft kiss to it. "Always." he whispers.

"You came back to me." she smiles.

"No." he answers. "I came back for you." he whispers.

She doesn't understand.

"I came back to take you with me, Carrie." Brody softly says.

"I thought you left, I thought you left me behind." she admits.

"Never could I leave you, love." he says, as he holds her hand with his. "I only exist when I'm with you." he whispers.

"Then, stay with me always." she says, almost pleading.

"That is unquestionable." he answers.

Her smile widens.

"You're tired, aren't you, love?" he asks.

She nods.

"Come here..." he whispers, soothingly.

He pulls her towards him, as close as he can; she places her head against his chest, he lowers his arm around her back and holds her.

"You'll stay with me always?" she asks, softly, as she buries her head in his chest.

He takes both of Carrie's hands and holds them, softly.

He whispers, a sweet, soft promise in her ear, "Always, love."

* * *

**A/N:**

_A Brody and Carrie one-shot, a different version of the season two finale I thought of.  
I hope that you enjoy this one and thank you for reading.  
X_


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